


Balance

by DictionaryWrites2



Series: Eden House [4]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Children, Fluff, Humor, Kid Fic, M/M, Retirement, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites2/pseuds/DictionaryWrites2
Summary: Aziraphale isn't good with children, not like Crowley is, like Crowley always has been.But he tries his best.





	Balance

“That’s alright, just like that,” Crowley said, smiling as he leaned back, and Aziraphale kept his book loosely in his lap as he watched Crowley work. Liam had his arms outstretched as he walked slowly along the bar, his gaze forward. “No, no, see, you’re going on your tiptoes again – you don’t need to. You’ve got the whole of your sole to help you balance, lad, so your toes  _and_  your heel… That’s it.”

“How can you do it so fast?” Liam demanded, and he stumbled, but Crowley moved to catch him by the hand before he could tip too far the other way, letting him catch his balance again.

The children had been watching Crowley fix some of the tiling on the Halifax family’s roof on the other side of Chesterton-Burnleigh, and they’d been mystified by the way Crowley had moved so fast back and forth over the support beams and even over the railing on the edges of their balconies. Aziraphale would love to be able to chalk it up to his demonic grace, that perhaps he had his wings invisibly outstretched to assist him in balancing, but he knew that wasn’t the case: Crowley really was that comfortable on his fleet feet, balancing on thin beams and railings, and now he had set up a wooden beam on the picnic green beside the pond for them to try their own balance on. The grass here was thick and littered with daisies, and would provide a good deal of padding if they fell, beyond Crowley’s own little twists of magic.

He remembered, the body Crowley had had before this one. He’d lost it in… Oh, what year was it? 1831, he thought, that he’d been discorporated, and he’d only had it for sixty years or so. He preferred – like Aziraphale – to wear a man’s body, as a rule[1], but he’d worn a woman’s body, then. He’d been kicked by a horse, Aziraphale thought, that was what had ended it…

He’d been a nursemaid for quite a few families, before he’d gone on to teach at a girls’ school for ten years or so. He had always enjoyed the work, and Aziraphale had always thought he would be corrupting the children, but he never did, especially. The children were always very happy and healthy, and he was always very careful with them, even as he went about his usual duties. It was the best way, he always said at the time, for a young woman to remain unmarried and not in threat of such proposals, but Aziraphale had never really believed that.

Crowley could go unnoticed no matter whom or what he wore.

“It’s just practice,” Crowley was saying gently. “You get a sense for it.”

Liam came to the end of the bar, taking a slow step down, and Crowley turned to gesture for young Lisa, who was the end of the line.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “It looks quite  _dangerous_ ,” she said.

“It isn’t dangerous,” Crowley said, shaking his head. Aziraphale watched the way he moved. It came so instinctively to him, it always had: he leaned down just slightly, that him and Lisa were on a more similar level, but his body language was open and casual. Aziraphale wouldn’t have thought to do that, he didn’t think – or maybe he would have crouched, and Crowley said the children hated it when one did that. “Look, you’ve seen Liam, Stephanie, and Nathaniel do it, and when Nick fell, I caught him, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but he’s  _small_ ,” Lisa said. She was a rather large little girl, round where her sister was more athletic, and she looked rather anxious. “He’s not nearly as heavy as I am.”

Crowley smiled, and it was a warm, gentle smile, softly paternal in its aspect, and Aziraphale exhaled quietly at the sight of it. “Lisa, you are  _not_  heavy. You’ve seen me carry big sheets of glass, the stone for the benches… Darling, you’re a bag of feathers compared to all that.”

Lisa didn’t look convinced, biting down upon her lower lip, and Aziraphale hesitated, but then he set a bookmark on his page, taking a few steps forward.

“Why don’t I show you, dear?” he asked, and Lisa turned to look up at him. Aziraphale felt himself stiffen slightly, uncertain, but then Lisa gave an anxious smile, and nodded her head. She was the only one of the children who visited here he really felt he  _understood,_ although that was hardly saying much: he wasn’t very good with children, much as he tried his best, and he knew that, but Lisa didn’t seem to mind especially, and would sometimes come and sit down next to him whilst Crowley led the other children in an activity, or when she grew disinterested in Crowley’s lessons on one subject or other.

“ _You_ can’t do it,” Stephanie said as Aziraphale delicately toed off his loafers.

“And why is that, young lady?” Aziraphale asked as Crowley smiled at him, leaning forward and taking hold of his hand, bringing it up to his mouth and kissing the back of his knuckles.

“You’re  _old_ ,” Stephanie said. “And— And—”

“Big?” Aziraphale asked, somewhat archly.

Stephanie closed her mouth. Aziraphale heard Lisa giggle behind him.

“You will catch me?” he asked, somewhat uncertainly.

“You probably won’t fall,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale laughed as he stepped up the wooden stair Crowley had laid beside the beam. It wasn’t so far off the ground – only a little higher than four feet – but he did feel somewhat unbalanced as he set one sole upon the beam, stretching out his arms and letting Crowley release his hand.

“Could  _you_  fix someone’s roof, Mr Fell?” Nick asked.

“Oh, goodness, no,” Aziraphale said, resisting the urge to shake his head, because he knew he would topple if he did that. He wanted to throw out his wings to assist him, but he didn’t wish to  _cheat_ , as it were: he was rather unsteady as he moved along the beam, rather slowly, compared to the children, but Crowley was smiling up at him as he walked alongside. “No, I fear Anthony far exceeds me in most practical skills.”

“That’s not true,” Crowley murmured. “Ezra can make bindings for books from scratch. Spins his goldwork and everything.”

“What’s goldwork?” Liam asked.

“You spin metals into thin threads,” Ezra said, focusing forward as he drew his next foot forward. “You can embroider with them, then – some books take well to embroidery to decorate covers, especially leather and cloth covers, but it’s very good for the binding, too, where one might stitch the pages. Golden or silver thread is quite hardwearing, of course.”

“Wow,” Liam said. Aziraphale felt his lips twitch as he finally came to the end of the beam. He’d had a few wobbles, but he hadn’t fallen—

Well.

Until now.

He turned to meet Crowley’s gaze, and the demon gave a slight inclination of his head: Aziraphale squeezed his eyes rather tightly shut as he let himself tip to the side, doing his best not to let out a yelp as he felt his foot come away from the bar, but he knew Crowley would catch him, he knew—

Crowley’s arms were strong as they encircled him, catching at the backs of his thighs and his back, and Aziraphale let out a breathless sound, reaching up and touching the side of Crowley’s neck. Crowley leaned in, kissing his nose, and Aziraphale laughed quietly, leaning his head on Crowley’s shoulder as he exhaled.

“See?” Crowley said, winking at Lisa. “Light as a feather.”

She did look much more confident now, at least. Aziraphale could see the light shining in her eyes and the way she was bouncing on her heels, and he felt himself smile slightly as he stood delicately back to his feet, moving to retrieve his shoes.

Lisa hurried forward, and Aziraphale stepped to the side, but to his surprise she threw her arms about his waist, hugging him very tightly. “Oh,” he said, awkwardly – but gently – patting the top of her head, brushing the blue silk of her Alice band as he did so, and he smiled.

“Thank you, Mr Fell,” she mumbled against the wool vest over his belly.

“Oh, my dear, it’s no trouble at all, come now.” He looked at Crowley, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders slightly, but his smile was encouraging. Aziraphale delicately patted her shoulder, and she leaned back, beaming up at him, before she stepped toward the beam and removed her little ballet slippers.

It was—

He hadn’t been hugged by a child in an awfully long time, he didn’t think. He wasn’t sure in how many years, but not for… In the mid-19th century, perhaps, when Crowley was asleep – he’d taken up at the Hyacinth and Vine, the discreet little gentleman’s club in London, much more than he had, and he believed he’d fetched some young boy’s cat from a tree whilst walking out to the club of an evening. Poor thing had been beside himself, if he recalled.

This was somewhat more—

_Significant_ , he supposed it felt.

They had been here for several months, now. Adam had visited twice, and that had been nice – they’d actually rather begun being his  _godfathers_ , in the year since the Apocalypse hadn’t happened, and he was a pleasant boy, kind, intelligent, but he was rather…

Crowley would no doubt chide him for calling the boy rough-and-tumble. Aziraphale didn’t know what the more modern parlance might be. But he didn’t especially need anybody’s support or comfort, and although he often asked Aziraphale questions, he didn’t ordinarily wait for an answer.

These children, though, they did listen to him, particularly when they  _asked_  for him to explain something. They could be a little rude, of course – Stephanie in particular had a rather startling tendency to blurt out precisely what was on her mind, regardless of how  _thoughtless_  it might be, and young Nathaniel tried too hard to be clever, sometimes with a view to being unkind, but… They weren’t nasty children, not at all. They were generally thoughtful, and generally gentle.

He recalled when Crowley had taught at that girls’ school –  _those_  young ladies had been vicious little demons in their own right, even without his careful tutelage. He  _liked_  children, Aziraphale knew. He was  _good_  with them, and they liked him: they liked that he was funny and erudite, and they liked how neatly he explained things, how he saw things on their level…

Aziraphale wasn’t all that good at such things. He condescended without meaning to, or got confused as to what the children did or didn’t know, or tried too hard. But, Crowley…

“There you go, my girl!” Crowley said, clapping his hands together, and Lisa laughed as she stepped on very graceful feet down from the beam – she really did have nothing to worry about. She was an incredibly dainty girl, with a grace that did remind Aziraphale of the way things used to be, seventy years ago, ninety…

She beamed at Aziraphale, and he smiled right back at her.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Later on, when the children had gone home, he sat at one of the stools on the kitchen island, watching Crowley’s fingers as he delicately worked upon the pastry, twisting two threads of the stuff about the edge of a bramble pie.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale asked.

“Yeah?”

“With— With Young Warlock,” Aziraphale said quietly, keeping his hands up from the counter and away from the flour dusting it, “you sent Ashtoreth. In your place, I mean, as I sent Francis.”

“Ye-es,” Crowley said, raising an expectant eyebrow.

“But— Well, my dear,  _you_  were a nursemaid. For nearly fifty years! And that was without teaching at that boarding school, too.”

“Oh, that was years ago,” Crowley scoffed, his tone dismissive. “Children were different, then.”

“But these children are just the same, and you’re good with them,” Aziraphale said. “Teaching them this morning, you did so well with them. They adore you. I don’t mean to disparage Ashtoreth’s abilities, but had you nannied himself, you know, you’d have been— You’d have been at quite the advantage, you know, you could have…”

“We wanted it to be equal,” Crowley said. “Our influence.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale allowed.

“And I never—” Crowley furrowed his brow, pressing his lips together. “ _Ashtoreth_  was comfortable, going all in for that… Hell stuff. You know, telling him to praise Lucifer and what-not, and telling him to be nasty and cruel. What do I want to be telling a kid to do that for? She was just as— What is it, as Francis was? Over-the-top, it means.”

“Superlative?”

“Superlative,” Crowley said, nodding his head. “Yeah. I couldn’t have been like that.”

“You seem— My dear, you seem ever so happy. So in your element, with these children.”

“I am,” Crowley murmured, his lip twitching slightly, and Aziraphale reached out, drawing his fingers gently over Crowley’s chin, tracing the jut of bone there. “Can’t exactly win that Lisa Turpin over, though. She’s your girl through and through, Mr Fell.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Mr Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, touching his thumb to the base of Crowley’s lip as Crowley looked at him with warmth in his yellow eyes, but he felt himself smile, felt the sense of warmth the idea evoked. “They’re such… They’re such  _lovely_  children. I just wish I had your grace with them.”

“You just need to let them come to you,” Crowley said. “Like cats.”

“A lot of cats find me overbearing,” Aziraphale said.

“Yeah,” Crowley said. “This advice is two birds with one stone, angel.”

Aziraphale let out an indignant huff, but Crowley leaned his chin right into Aziraphale’s palm, showing his teeth when he smiled again. “You know,” Aziraphale said, “and I don’t say this in terms of the, ah, the  _near_  future, but… A lot of retirees, they foster.”

“Something to think about,” Crowley said quietly, kissing the meat at the heel of Aziraphale’s palm. “Do you want to watch something? I’ll bring the television up to the bedroom.”

“What have you in mind?”

“ _Star Trek_. The one with the whales, I picked it up on video.”

“We saw that in the cinema only a few years back.”

“Yeah, I know,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale considered this for a moment, his fingers stroking at the base of Crowley’s throat, feeling the smoothness of the skin. For just a moment, they were outside Eden, and Crowley was but a mess of roping coils in his lap, his scaled chin resting in Aziraphale’s palm. That was ever so long ago, and yet equally, it was just yesterday.

He nodded, with a small smile, and he withdrew his hand, that Crowley might return to his work.

It was a good night.

Peaceful, quiet.

They were at home together, and this was the new routine.

 

[1] Although, they would each freely admit, this mattered very little, as either of them could alter their appearance quite entirely on the head of a pin, if they wanted to, but it was the  _premise_  of the thing.


End file.
